Original reporting on little-known U.S. government funded foreign aid projects, so-called "drug war" initiatives, and overseas business subsidies.

Mozambique

07/31/2013

Bureaucracy proposed to overcome Kenyan obstacles

President Obama’s multi-billion-dollar “Power Africa”
initiative aims to double citizen access to electricity and other power sources
across Sub-Saharan Africa. But it plays down the creation of a new
public-private bureaucracy needed to overcome the pervasive corruption and
incompetence of African governments and power utilities.

A significant portion of the Kenya-based endeavor is
designed simply to administer the program. Segments include efforts to sway
public and congressional opinion in favor of the initiative, according to a new
planning document U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor located through routine database research.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID,
will hire a contractor or contractors primarily to persuade African officials
to change regulatory governance of power distribution, explains the draft
Statement of Work, or SOW. A corresponding agency goal is to encourage, with
contractor assistance, the escalation of private-sector investment in the
region.

The USAID chief of party, or COP, and deputy COP, “who will
be the overall managers of the contracts,” will reserve 10 percent of program
funding for those government managerial functions, the document says.

The project’s overarching goal “is to remove the power
constraint to economic growth and spur trade and investment, while mitigating
long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trajectories,” the draft SOW says.
“Power Africa will serve as a catalyst that will spark a transformation in
Africa’s energy and power sectors.

“The immediate outcome will be increased supply of and
access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable power for millions of Africans
and the enhanced responsible and transparent management of energy resources.”

Put in simpler terms, despite Obama’s ambitious and
confident proclamations about the endeavor during his recent Africa trip, the
document simultaneously affirms his vision and acknowledges the great
difficulties the U.S. faces in executing such reforms.

Among other factors, the weak regulatory, policy and legal
environments – made worse by continent-wide “corrupt and non-transparent
bidding and contractual procedures” – serve as constraints to the sort of
international investment Obama wants to bring about, the SOW says.

Political instability, a lengthy history of state-owned
utilities and the “fear of change and competition” likewise deter private
sector project-development and investment.

Consequently, the Obama administration expects U.S.
taxpayers over the next five years to commit $7 billion toward stabilizing and
correcting the investment roadblocks.

Whereas USAID will provide $285 million in technical
assistance to remedy what it admits are typically corrupt and often incompetent
governmental bodies and utility providers, the administration will direct the
remainder of the funds through other U.S. agencies.

Among the entities are the Export-Import Bank of the United
States, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the U.S. Trade &
Development Agency – entities that the Cato Institute says should be
“terminated” because they largely serve as monumental vehicles of “corporate
welfare waste.”

Reminiscent of a prior scheme to sway journalists into
providing favorable coverage of its Kenyan aid program – a document for which the
agency abruptly blocked public access following this writer's coverage of the matter – the USAID prime
contractor also must provide communications and outreach support that will be
“directed at the American public, U.S. Congress” and elsewhere, the draft SOW
says.

The agency kept the program quiet for a year before
repackaging it with decreased emphasis, according to publicly available
documents, on the propaganda angle, as the Monitor recently reported.

According to the Power Africa draft SOW, the selected vendor
must devote 20 percent of its efforts under the prime contract towards
“institutional support” for the program coordinator’s office.

Communications and outreach activities represent just one
component of institutional support, which also entails tracking and coordinating
activities among “Power Africa implementers and stakeholders” such as other
U.S. agencies, host country governments and non-governmental organizations, the
document says.

Although USAID’s East Africa Regional Mission in Nairobi,
Kenya, is home to the coordinator’s office, Power Africa also has plans for
Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.

This article originally was published via WND.com (July 23, 2012). Under agreement with the editor, rights have reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock.

07/29/2013

President Obama’s multi-billion-dollar “Power Africa” initiative aims
to double citizen access to electricity and other power sources across
Sub-Saharan Africa. But it plays down the creation of a new
public-private bureaucracy needed to overcome the pervasive corruption
and incompetence of African governments and power utilities.

A significant portion of the Kenya-based endeavor is designed simply to administer the program. Segments include efforts to sway public and congressional opinion in favor of the initiative, according to a new planning document WND
located through routine database research.

07/04/2013

Secretary of State John Kerry in March 2013 shakes hands with now-deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

President Obama wants to ensure all American adults obtain at least a year
of college or career training while regaining America’s role as “world leader
in college completion,” the U.S. Department of Education recently touted. The
Obama administration then launched a new program to bring about such
developments – in Egypt.

According to a U.S. Agency for
International Development “concept paper” that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor obtained through routine
database research, “Egypt now confronts a serious knowledge and skills deficit”
that impedes its ability to compete globally.

U.S. taxpayers, some of whom this
September will pay upwards of $45,000 annually for their own college educations,
now face the additional burden of helping Egyptians make better use of their
advanced degrees.

Those degrees are failing to produce
adequate returns on their investments, USAID says, leading to “educated
unemployment,” a phenomenon in which Egyptian college grads “are almost 10
times as likely to be unemployed than individuals with primary educations.”

USAID’s Higher Education Partnership
Program hopes to bring together the government of Egypt, Egyptian institutions
of higher learning and the private sector in a collaborative effort to meet the
needs of this North African nation’s business community.

The U.S. has an interest in helping
Egypt as it “transitions towards a democracy,” the document said.

The agency said the Egyptian
education system – containing 35 universities and eight regional technical
colleges consisting of 45 middle technical institutes – is the largest in the
Middle East and North Africa. Egypt, however, has failed to invest “sufficient
resources for these institutions to flourish as engines of knowledge transfer
and creation.”

Existing institutions are struggling
to “produce graduates with the skills employers seek, posing constraints for
growth opportunities, particularly in high skilled economic sectors.”

USAID noted that the nation “is
steeped in a tradition of education and scholarship,” pointing out that
Egyptian scholars have made significant advancements in the sciences,
engineering, mathematics and medicine dating back to “Pharaonic times and the
Islamic Caliphate.”

Despite such an “impressive legacy,”
Egypt currently lacks the infrastructure and labor force necessary “to
transform the country into a vibrant center of innovation and economic
prosperity.”

The agency issued a Request for
Information, or RFI, to solicit feedback from contractors potentially
interested in carrying out the endeavor, which could create up to 20
“university and technical college partnerships” focusing on a range of “shared
priority areas” among private industry and the respective governments of Egypt
and the United States.

The Obama administration in 2011
separately had been planning to provide technical assistance to Egypt to
explore the creation of a nationwide system of community colleges. It remains
unclear whether it ever carried out that initiative, as a thorough search of
the FedBizOpps contractor database produced zero contract awards
for the endeavor.

The following is a rundown of other
recent U.S. foreign aid-related developments. The list is by no means
exhaustive, but simply offers a snapshot of additional federal spending, both
small and large.

AFRICA

The Bureau of the Public Debt at the
U.S. Department of the Treasury is buying a 10-seat Toyota Land Cruiser for the
U.S. African Development Foundation in the Liberian capital of Monrovia. Other
than offering 14 pages of contract clauses and vehicle
specifications, Treasury disclosed little else about this procurement.

Treasury separately is buying a Toyota Fortuner 4×4 for the foundation’s
Malawi operations and a Toyota Land Cruiser for its Zambian facility.

KYRGYZSTAN

USAID is recruiting private-sector
advisers for deployment to Kyrgyzstan, officially known as the Kyrgyz Republic,
to help manage a $50 million portfolio of U.S.-funded development projects.

“Because of its proximity to South
Asia and its potential to contribute to stability in nearby Afghanistan and
Pakistan, the Kyrgyz Republic is of considerable geopolitical and strategic interest”
to the U.S, the agency says in a Personal Contracting Services notice.

USAID is launching the
Pacific-American Climate Fund, a project to provide grants for endeavors whose
aim is to “reduce long-term vulnerabilities associated with climate change and
achieve sustainable climate-resilient development.”

Subject to the availability of
funds, USAID expects to have a budget of about $24 million devoted to climate change adaptation efforts in island
countries such as Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Marshall Islands, Samoa and Solomon
Islands.

PAKISTAN

USAID is deploying to Islamabad a senior adviser for government-to-government
direct assistance. An agency solicitation did not disclose further details
about the position.

WORLDWIDE

The latest contract in USAID’s
International Rule of Law Technical Assistance Services project has been
awarded to Casals & Associates Inc., a subsidiary of
government contracting giant DynCorp International.

The agency did not specify how or
where Casals will provide services in the endeavor, which is based on the
United Nations principle that “all persons, institutions and entities, public
and private, including the state itself, are accountable to laws that are
publicly promulgated, equally enforced, and independently adjudicated, and
which are consistent with international human rights law.”

Up to $500 million in Indefinite
Quantity Contracts, or IQCs, could be given to Casals and other selected
vendors over the next five years.

This article originally appeared June 28 via WND. Rights gave reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock, under agreement with WND.

05/04/2013

The extrication of U.S. Special Forces injured in African military
ventures soon will provide contractors with an additional revenue
stream, now that the Obama administration plans to keep such vendors on
stand-by, 24/7, for cross-continent airborne mobilization.

While the Pentagon’s reliance on private vendors to support
international military operations is nothing new, plans to station such
providers specific to such a large swath of Africa does deviate from
prior procurement actions.

The Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support
initiative will rely on outside assistance in the event that soldiers of
U.S. Special Operations Command-Africa sustain traumatic medical
emergencies, thereby requiring urgent transportation out of hostile
zones.

Indeed, SOCOM-Africa places such urgency on its anticipated use of
such Casualty Evacuation, or CASEVAC, services that, at a minimum,
contractors must be capable of launching an airborne response with only a
three hour notice.

Despite this urgency, the vendor securing that contract largely will
engage in cargo- and personnel airlift activities, plus a limited number
of air-drop missions.

The “most likely” locations for such operations are Algeria, Burkina
Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria,
Senegal and Tunisia, according to the U.S. Transportation Command
solicitation.

Kenya, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Uganda also fall within the Primary
Operating Area, or POA, of this endeavor, the USTRANSCOM document says.

SOCOM-Africa will enable this expedited response-capability by
stationing the contractor in Burkina Faso, a landlocked West African
nation, it says.

A search of prior Tactical Combat Casualty Care and CASEVAC
solicitations available via the FedBizOpps system shows that USSOCOM and
other Department of Defense units typically and primarily seek only
training and equipment.

Rather than soliciting continent-wide provision of emergency medical
and flight assistance, those contracting actions generally have sought
assistance to enable combatant commands to provide themselves with such
medical assistance.

One USSOCOM contracting action representative of the government’s
acquisition of CASEVAC “kits” and trauma-management training, for
example, described a critical need for Special Operations combat forces to obtain new techniques and technology in support of “ongoing operations worldwide.”

Another Special Ops solicitation
from late last year revealed a $40 million, two-year contract extension
awarded to Tribalco, LLC, a Bethesda, Maryland-based maker of CASEVAC
and other “soldier-survival” equipment.

USTRANSCOM did not disclose an estimated cost of the Africa-centric CASEVAC procurement.

In other U.S. military procurement actions specific to Africa:

The Defense Logistics Agency on April 12 issued a request for bids
to provide the U.S. Air Force with 547,500 gallons of No. 2 diesel fuel
“for ongoing deliveries to Niamey Airport, Niger, (Africa).”

The U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Command, or NAVFAC, announced it intends
to spend up to $25 million for power plant upgrades at Camp Lemonnier,
Djibouti (CLDJ), Africa; however, despite acknowledging in an earlier
document the estimated cost of the Caterpillar generators, a partly
redacted no-bid Justification & Approval document blacked out the
final award amount. It offered no explanation for the redaction .

NAVFAC additionally began soliciting bids to build a cold-storage
food warehouse and a separate galley to store P-218 anti-malarial drug
reserves, representing another potential $25 million contracting
endeavor at CLDJ.

NAVFAC on April 12 revealed
that it awarded a $33 million contract to Kellogg, Brown and Root to
“perform base operating services at CLDJ and occasionally other
locations within Africa.” Despite announcing the KBR contract this month, the Navy unit actually awarded it in December, the document shows.

This article originally appeared via WND April 28. Under prior agreement, rights have reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock.

03/08/2012

The 140 staff members of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)/Mozambique are getting a boost of professional motivation to perform their jobs with greater creativity -- and the agency is hiring outside help to accomplish that task. USAID today issued a Request for Quotations (#RFQ-656-12-008) to enlist the assistance of vendors capable of carrying out the Mission Innovation Synthesis Training Activity, known as MISTA for short. According to the RFQ, the agency is "seeking assistance to inspire, demonstrate, and train USAID/Mozambique staff to think and act more creatively and to find innovative approaches to the challenges they face in planning, implementing, and managing the U.S. Government's $270 million per year program of development assistance to Mozambique." A task order worth $45-$50,000 is expected to be issued to a selected contractor.

01/30/2012

Having recognized that successful early reading education programs contribute to future student success both in and out of the classroom, the Obama Administration intends to execute a new program to build upon those successes.

And it intends to carry out that task in the African nation of Mozambique.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which will carry out this endeavor with private sector assistance, late last week issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) from vendors capable of launching such an initiative. The Early Grade Reading Assessment Plus Quality Instruction and Management (EGRA+QIM) Project, as it is known, "will be one of several mechanisms for implementing the USAID/Mozambique Basic Education Program for the 2012 to 2017 period," according to the 139-page RFP.

Support will be provided through:

expert training and coaching support, and institutional development at the provincial, district, teacher training institute, and school cluster levels.

The Contractor will focus on the following areas: a) Improved in-service teacher training and coaching in reading instruction; and, b) Strengthened school management. The Contractor will seek to inspire political leadership, train and mentor education sector personnel in Mozambique to significantly advance reading outcomes in the early grades of public primary school education. The Contractor is required to ensure the cost-effectiveness of interventions and develop the capacity of local education institutions in reading assessment and instruction.

Bids are due March 2. USAID did not disclose the estimated cost of the initiative.